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PRICE, 15 CENTS. 



DID THE 




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SUM Purchase 



EXTEKD TO THE 



PACIFIC OCEAJSr? 



OUR TITLE TO ORBOON. 



JOHN J. ANDERSON, PH. D. 





NEW YORK : 

CLARK ct MAYNARD, Publishers, 

5 Barclay Street. 

18S1. 



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>€:#'«*; 



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confess tliat my individual views do not coincide tJierewitlt. 



DID THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXTEND 
TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN? 



/ 

BY JOHN J. ANDERSON, PH. D. 



The Ninth Census Report of the United States, being for the year 1870, 
contains a map which represents the Province of Louisiana, commonly known 
as the Louisiana Purchase, acquired from France in 1803, as stretching from 
the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean. Up to the appearance of that report 
it was generally understood and believed that the territory in question extended 
no farther west than the Rocky Mountains. Every author of note, so far as ^'s 
within the writer's knowledge, who has expressed any opinion on the subject, 
has so declared; but since the advent of the report, several compilers of 
school histories, adopting the verdict of the map and thus without making any 
investigations for themselves, have asserted in their books that the Purchase 
extended to the Pacific. One compiler, while adhering to his former state- 
ment, that " What is now the State of Louisiana was but a little part of the 
vast territory which then bore that name, for this territory extended from the 
Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains," has inserted in his book an exact copy of 
the census map referred to, without correcting any of its errors, one of which 
includes Texas as a part of the cession made to the United States in 1848. Need 
he be told that Texas was annexed to the United States in 1845, and was imme- 
diately after represented in our Congress at Washington ? There are other im- 
portant errors in that map, notably one in respect to the original territorial limits 
of Kentucky.* It is thus seen that while some instructors are teaching that the 
western limits of the Louisiana Purchase did not extend beyond the Rocky 
Mountains, others hold that they did not stop short of the Pacific coast. 
Whom are we to believe ? As both sides cannot be correct, and the subject is one 
of acknowledged importance, we will make a brief investigation into the facts. 

In the year 1682, the French explorer La Salle descended the Mississippi 
river to its mou:h, taking formal possession of the country in the name of his 
king, Louis .l|i||L TIfe Spaniards, under De Soto, had previously discovered 
the MississipP^md wandered over a large part of its valley, but neither De 
Soto's party nor any of his countrymen ever followed up the advantage thus 
gained by making a settlement within the territory, and consequently, accord- 
ing to the law of nations, Spain failed to reap the fruits of De Soto's success. 
The French w^% more active. In this great valley of the Mississippi they 
planted settlements and established missionary stations and military posts. 



* The writer addressed a note to General F. A. Walker, Superintendent of the Census, asking 
him for the information that induced him in his report to include the Oregon region in the Louis- 
iana Purchase. The general, in his reply, says: " Mfcreason for embracing Oregon in the terri- 
tory covered by the Louisiana Purchase, for the purp^Bs of the map printed in connection with the 
reports of the Ninth Census, or, rather, for allowingThe map which Col. Stocking had prepared, 
to go into the work without correction in this particular, was, that the United States government, 
as I recall the negotiations, had made claim to Oregon by virtue of the Louisiana Purchase." In 
another communication, addressed to a prominent western educator, respecting the western limits 
assigned in the map to the Louisiana Purchase, the general goes further, saying: '■'• I am/ree to 
confess that my indr.'idital viczvs do not coincide therewith." 



The Louisiana Piwckasc, 



and thus became the rightful owners of the entire region. If Spain at that 
time could lay any claim whatever to the region, that claim was surrendered to 
France in due time, as we shall see. Already we come to the important ques- 
tion upon which hinges the solution of the whole matter. What was the extent 
of the territory not merely occupied but claimed by the French } Parkman, in 
his " Discovery of the Great West," a work evincing extensive and patient 
research, says (p. 284) : "The Louisiana of to-day is but a single State of the 
American Republic. The Louisiana of La Salle stretched from the Alleghanies 
to the Rocky Mountains, from the Rio Grande and the Gulf to the farthest 
springs of the Missouri." Greenhow, in his " History of Oregon and Califor- 
nia" (p. 283J, makes a like declaration, and so do all the other writers who hav>. 

-.: :,.i : .:„„.:-- ^- .1 bject. 

)n of Louisiana till 1762. In November o 
e agreed to at Paris, between France anc 
1 and Portugal on the other, and, by tht 
treaiics uin_^,i..^ v^.^^i .vard nio.rle i ice ceded to Spain " all the country knowr 
under the name of Louisiana, as also New Orleans and the island on which 
that city is situated," and Great Britain, a little more than two months later, 
" received possession of Canada, Florida, and the portion of Louisiana east of 
the line drawn along the middle of the Iberville river to the sea." Spain thus 
came in quiet possession of all the region of Louisiana west of the Mississippi 
and the Iberville. (The Iberville is an eastern outlet of the Mississippi, about 
fourteen miles south of Baton Rouge.) The fact that arrests our attention at 
this stage of the investigation is that while the treaties made at Paris gave 
Louisiana a definite boundary on the east, nothing was said of a western 
boundary. Why was this omission ? Greenhow (p. 279) offers a partial expla- 
nation in these words : " With regard to the western limits of Louisiana, no 
settlement of boundaries was necessary, as the territory thus acquired by Spain 
would join other territory of which she also claimed possession." The western 
part of Louisiana, it will be noted, joined other territory : it did not extend to 
the Pacific. 

During the next thirty-eight years Spain was in possession of Louisiana. 
In the year 1800, an exchange of territories was eft'ected, Spain, in order to 
enlarge the dominions of one of her royal princes, transferring to France the 
Province of Louisiana in exchange for certain lands in Italy. Thj^nguage of the 
transfer is an important factor in this investigation. " His oBffoIic majesty," 
so says the transfer, " engages to retrocedeto the French Republic, the Province 
of Louisiana, with the same extent which it now has in the hands of Spain, 
andwJiich it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be, according 
to the treaties subsequently made between Spain and other stlHes." Was lan- 
guage ever more explicit.? This does not look like giving to Louij 
Pacific ocean for its western boundary. " Certainly," as has been aptly r« 
" no treaties entered into by Spain could enlarge the extent of Louisiar 
tainly Spain never relinquished more than she received." 

We now come to the acquisition of the Louisiana territory by tlu 
States. This was accomplished, we all know, during Jefi'erson's adi 
tion. It is a matter of history that Jefferson had no thought of sect 
the United States more territory than enough to give us the free navig 
the Mississippi river. In his letter of Feb. i, 1803, to Mr. Dupont, J 
"The country which we wish to purchase is a barren sand, six hundr 
from east to west, and from thirty to forty and fifty miles from north t( 



The Louisiana Piwchase. 



Such being the case, Napoleon's proposition to sell the whole Province of 
Louisiana produced, as may well be supposed, a great surprise to the American 
negotiators in Paris, for they had only made efforts to procure a " cession of 
New Orleans and the Floridas." Transcending their authority, they accepted 
the offer, and the purchase was effected on the 30th of April, 1803. Now, the 
vital question just here is. What did we buy? How large was the purchase? 
The treaty, or, as we may call it, the bill of sale, itself, will best answer the ques- 
tion. After reciting the third article of the treaty of 1800, the territory thus 
retroceded to France was, says the bill of sale, "ceded to the United States, in 
the name of the French Republic, as fully and in the same manner as it had 
^een acquired by the French Republic, in virtue of the above-mentioned treaty 
vith his Catholic majesty." This, and nothing more. "No other description 
of boundaries," says Greenhow, "could ever be obtained from the French gov- 
lirnment." It was distinctly asserted by Marbois, the negotiator of the treaty 
bn the part of Napoleon, that the French never owned any part of North 
iAmerica west of the Rocky Mountains. It is plain that " France could not sell 
jto the United States in 1803 more than she recovered from Spain in 1800." In 
.our negotiations with Spain, commenced at Madrid in 1804, for the adjustment 
'of the lines which were to separate the territories of the two governments, 
iSpain contended "that the Louisiana ceded to Spain by France in 1762, and 
retroceded to France in 1800, and transferred by the latter power to the United 
States in 1803, could not, in justice, be considered as comprising more than 
'• New Orleans, with the tract in its vicinity east of the Mississippi, and the coun- 
try immediately bordering on the west bank of that river" (Greenhow, p. 280) ; 
and in. 1818, up to the close of the long-pending negotiations, now conducted 
at Washington, Don Onis, the Spanish minister, firmly reiterated this declara- 
tion (Hildreth, vol. VI., p. 647). On the 12th of March, 1844, Mr. A. V. Brown, 
from the "Committee on the Territories," made a report in Congress, covering 
twenty-four closely-printed pages, in which this whole question is thoroughly 
discussed. In all this long report there is not the lirst attempt to prove that 
our right to Oregon came to us through the Louisiana Purchase. Witness the 
language of the report: '' The Louisiana treaty cedes to the L^nited States the 
Province of Louisiana, with the same extent it had in the hands of Spain in 
1800, and that it had when previously possessed by France.' This description 
is loose, but >^)oleon chose to execute a quit-claim rather than a warranty 
of boundarie^^ But why did Napoleon so choose? Why did he not give us a 
deed of the territory to the Pacific ? For the best of all reasons. He did not 
own, nor had he ever owned, that extent of territory. He sold us just what he 
had — nothing more. He wanted the money, for just at that moment he was 
going to war with England ; and we, when the unexpected opportunity came, 
discovered that we wanted the land he could sell — every inch of it. 

In support of the conclusion we have reached witness the following testi- 
mony : 

"The western boundary of Louisiana is, rightfully, the Rio Bravo, from its 
mouth to its source, and thence along the highlands and mountains dividing 
the waters of the Mississippi from those of the Pacific. On the waters of 
the Pacific we can found no claim in right of Louisiana." — Jefferson to John 
Melish, Map-publisher, of Philadelphia, Dec. 31, 18 16. 

"We are forced to regard the boundaries indicated by nature — namely, the 
highlands separating the waters of the Mississippi from those flowing into the 
Pacific or the California Gulf — as the true western boundaries of the Louis- 



Our Title to Oreooii. 



iana ceded bv France to Spain in 1762, and retroceded to France in 1800, 
and transferred to the United States by France in 1803." — Robert Greenhow. 

"We find Louisiana supported on the west border, as if by a buttress, by the 
great chain of mountains that give source to the Missouri and Columbia 
rivers." — William Darby . 

" The shores of the western ocean were certainly not included in the cession" 
of Louisiana to the United States. — M. Marbois. 

The conclusion of the whole matter is that no part of the territory west of 
the Rocky Mountains came to us by reason of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, 
in this conclusion all the best authorities — Spanish, French, and American — 
agreeing. It need not be added that the English took the same view of the 
subject. 

Our Title to Oregon. 

If, then, the region west of the Rocky Mountains now covered by the State 
'of Oregon and the territories of Washington and Idaho did not come to us as 
a part of the Louisiana Purchase, in what way did it come? Let us see. 

It is certain that Spanish navigators were the first to reach the western 
coast of North America. Their explorations, begun by Cortez and under his 
direction, were continued by Cabrillo (in 1 542), who examined the coast as far as 
the northern limits of San Francisco Bay. The death of Cabrillo occurring while 
he was engaged in this enterprise, his pilot, Ferrelo, prosecuted the undertaking, 
reaching the point as far, probably, as the forty-third degree of latitude (1543). 
Soon Spanish galleons crossed the Pacific from Mexico to the Philippine Islands 
and China, and returning, were compelled, by reason of the easterly or trade winds 
in th^ lower latitude, to take a northward course. In consequence, they often 
struck the North American coast far to the north of Mexico, in one case, it is 
asserted, beyond the fifty-seventh degree. 

Up to 1575 no English vessel had been in the Pacific. In that year a party 
of English freebooters commanded by John Oxenham, crossed the Isthmus of 
Darien, built a small vessel, launched it on the Pacific, and for several months 
pursued a career of piracy, Spanish vessels, of course, being the victims. At 
length they were captured, and, with few exceptions, hung. Three years later 
their fate was avenged by the "splendid pirate," as Bancroft calls him, Francis 
Drake, Entering the Pacific by way of the Straits of Magellan, Drake plun- 
dered the Spanish settlements on the west coast of America, di^ured, pillaged, 
and destroyed Spanish vessels; and tlicn, surmising that the people whom he 
had so cruelly treated were making preparations to intercept him on his return, 
resolved to make an attempt to reach England by sailing across the Pacific and 
around the northern part of Asia and Europe. After proceeding in a north- 

[NOTE. — The third extract given above is from the second edition of Darby's Ceograp/n'cal 
Deccription 0/ Louisiana, 360 pages, pubHshed in New York in 1817; a work commended in the 
highest terms by Wm. C. C. Clairborne, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, and others, as 
appears by their letters pubhshed with the book. Mr. Greenliow's volume is an official work of 
492 pages. It was prepared under the sanction of the government, and "was published by author- 
ity of the United States Senate." Is there any map or document of higher authority? It wa.s 
Secretary Buchanan's reliance in his negotiations with Palcenham, the British envoy, and stands 
to-day the most complete and trustworthy exposition of the Oregon Question. The fourth extract 
is from the History of Louisiana, by Marbois, Napoleon's Minister of the Treasur}', by whom the 
negotiations were conducted, in 1803, on the part of the French, for the sale of Louisiana to the 
United States. The book was published in 1829, and, as is readily seen, its statements are 
deserving of the h-ghest credit.] 



Our Title to Ore con. 



westerly direction for several weeks, and encountering cold and violent rains, he 
put back to the American coast. Abandoning the attempt northward, from 
San Francisco Bay or the Bay of Bodej^a — it is not certain which — he made 
his second and, as it proved, successful departure. What extent of coast 
Drake saw is not known. He never made any report, either by journal or 
other writing; but it is certain that what he did see had been previously seen by 
the Spaniards. 

For a period of nearly two hundred years, if we except a voyage made by 
Vizcaino in 1603, under instructions from King Philip II., of Spain, no attempts 
were made to explore any part of the north-western coast of North America. 
Vizcaino's explorations extended to the forty-third parallel of latitude; and till 
1774 nothing was known with certainty of any part of the coast further north 
as far as Alaska. Then, by direction of the Spanish king, four exploring 
voj^ages were sent in quick succession from Mexico, and the coast as far north 
as the fifty-sixth degree of latitude was carefully examined (i 774-1 779). Up to 
this time and until 1790, Spain's claims to the western side of America as far 
north as Alaska had at no time been called into question. Important explora- 
tions, however, had been made on the extreme north-western part of the conti- 
nent on behalf of the Russians. Behring's Straits had been entered by the 
daring navigator whose name it still bears, and between 1741 and 1770 the 
whole of the Alaska coast, down to its southernmost point, was explored. 

We have noticed the voyage made by Francis Drake (1577-1580). No fur- 
ther explorations were made bv the English in the North Pacific for a period 
of about two hundred years. Then the celebrated Captain Cook appeared upon 
the ocean. It was believed at that time that there existed a passage connecting 
Hudson's Bay with the Pacific. Cook's object was to find it. He entered the 
Pacific, doubling the Cape of Good Hope, and in January of 1778 discovered 
the Sandwich Islands. Steering eastward he reached the American coast, and 
traced it many hundred miles, but as the same had already been explored by the 
Spaniards or Russians, no credit, on the ground of first discovery, could be 
accorded to him. Other voyages were made to the coast by Russians as well 
as Englishmen, their object, in most cases, being for furs; but none of them 
were of any importance as respects our present investigations. V\^e now come 
to the facts upon which the government of our countrj^ based its claim to the 
Oregon region.^ By this term — the Oregon region — we mean all the domain 
west of the Rocky Mountains, now included in the State of Oregon and the 
territories of Washington and Idaho. 

In the latter part of 1787, the ship Columbia, commanded by John Kendrick, 
and the sloop Washington, commanded by Robert Gray, sailed from Boston. 
They were laden with an assortment of " Yankee notions," the vessels and 
cargoes being owned by a company of Boston merchants, whose object was to 
open a trade for furs along the north-west coast of North America, and to com- 
bine this with a trade to China. Both commanders were provided with letters 
in conformity, with a resolution of Congress, and also with friendly letters from 
the Spanish minister in the United States. Soon after passing around Cape 
Horn, the two vessels were separated by a violent storm, but succeeded in 
joining each other again in Nootka Sound, on the west of Vancouver's .Island, 
where they remained till the spring of 1789. During the summer of that year, 
while the Columbia remained at anchor in the sound. Captain Gray, in his little 
sloop of less than a hundred tons, made several excursions north and south 
along the coast, returning with the furs procured, and transferring them to the 



Oui" Title to Oregon. 



Columbia. In these excursions he made important explorations and was the 
first navigator to pass between the mainland and many islands off the coast. 
Leaving Kendrick, by agreement, Gray, in the Columbia, proceeded to China, 
exchanged his furs for a cargo of teas, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, 
and across the Atlantic to Boston, thus carrying the American flag for the first 
time around the world. Meanwhile, Kendrick, in the Washington, made 
further explorations, and preceded all Europeans in passing through the Straits 
of Juan de Fuca from one end to the other. 

Again, in 1791, was Captain Gray, this time in command of the Columbia, 
busy exploring the inlets and passages of the north-west coast. In the summer 
of that year he met with what proved to be a most important success, in finding 
a great river. This river, in May of the following year, he entered, and for a 
distance of about twenty miles carefully explored, bestowing upon it the name 
of bis vessel, which it bears at the present day. The English navigator, 
Vancouver, had previously declared, after having made, as he supposed, a 
minute examination of the coast, that there was no river in that part of North 
America. The discovery of the Columbia and its exploration by Gray con- 
tribute the first element in the United States title to the Oregon region. "We 
have the testimony of the British commander, Mackenzie, that from this time, 
or a period four or five years later, till 1814, the direct trade between the north- 
west coast of North America and China was almost entirely in the hands of 
the Americans. These men were called " Yankee adventurers" by the British, 
for, with " only a few trinkets of little value," they would set out on their 
voyages, would "pick up" seal-skins, furs, sandal-wood, sharks' fins, and pearls, 
and with these and a " handful of Spanish silver dollars," would purchase car- 
goes of tea, silks, and nankeens, getting home in two or three years. 

We now come to the second element in the United States title to the Oregon 
region. In January, 1803, President Jefferson sent a message to Congress recom- 
mending that certain western explorations should be made. His object, as made 
known in the message, had reference to the extension of the trade enterprises 
of the people of the United States. Occupation and settlement were no doubt 
also contemplated. The recommendation having been approved, an expedition 
was planned and the command of it given to Captain Lewis and Lieutenant 
Clarke. These two men were instructed to explore the Missouri river to its 
sources, and then " to seek and trace to its termination in the Pacific some 
stream which might offer the most direct water communication across the 
continent." Before, however, they had advanced further than the Mississippi 
river, the news came that Napoleon had proposed to sell the Louisiana terri- 
tory to the United States, and then that the sale and cession had been made. 
As the western expedition had been planned without reference to the acquisi- 
tion of Louisiana, its departure was not delayed because of that acquisition. 
Lewis and Clarke ascended the Missouri, crossed to the headwaters of the 
Columbia, and, descending that stream for a distance of six hundred miles, in 
November (1805) reached its mouth. This expedition, says Greenhow, "was an 
announcement to the world of the intention of the American government to 
occupy and settle the countries explored, to which certainly no other nation, 
except Spain, could advance so strong a claim on the ground of discovery or 
of contiguity." 

The third element in the United States title to the Oregon region was 
furnished in i8u by a company whose operations were directed by John Jacob 
Astor, of New York. Where the city of Astoria, in Oregon, now stands, the 



Our Title to Oregon. 



company built sheds and a large factory. They also constructed and launched 
a small vessel, and laid out and planted a garden. We need not relate the 
particulars of the events of the next few years connected with the history 
of Astoria ; how, during our second war with England, the place fell into the 
hands of the enemy, and how, after the war, because of a provision in the 
treaty of Ghent, it was restored to us. Our 'purpose is accomplished when we 
state, on evidence that was finally admitted by all parties, that the Astor settle- 
ment was the first in all the Oregon region. And this, as against Great Britain, 
completed and made perfect the United States title to the region on the 
principle laid down by Jefferson, in his letter to Mr. Melish, "that when a 
civilized nation takes possession of the mouth of a river in a new country, that 
possession is considered as including all its waters." 

In the meantime, however, Great Britain began to lay claim to the Oregon 
territory on the ground of exploration and alleged prior settlement ; but no 
negotiations were entered into with any power for the sovereignty of the region 
before the year 1818. In that year it was agreed between our government and 
Great Britain that all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains, claimed by 
the United States or Great Britain, " should be free and open to the vessels, 
citizens, and subjects of both for the space of ten years." It was at no time 
"asserted by the American government that the United States had a perfect 
right to that region; it was insisted, however, that their claim was at least 
good as against Great Britain." 

We now come to the final element in the United States title to the Oregon 
region. We have shown what was Spain's claim to the countr)^ as far north 
as the fifty-sixth degree of latitude. That claim, certainly to the largest 
portion of the territory, was indisputable as respects discovery and exploration ; 
but as Spain had failed to make any settlement, or any that proved permanent, 
there was "a flaw in the title," as the lawyers say. The claim, however, was 
certainly valid as against that of Great Britain, and was, as we have shown, 
superior to it. In 1819, a treaty, commonly called the Florida Treaty, was made 
between Spain and the United States, by which it was agreed that the southern 
boundary line of the United States, on the west to the Pacific, should be the 
forty-second parallel of latitude ; the king of Spain " ceding to the United 
States all his rights, claims, and pretensions to any territory north of said line." 
It is worth observing just here that the Melish map referred to in the treaty, 
and accepted by both governments as correct and for their guidance, gives the 
Rocky Mountains as the western limits of the Louisiana Purchase, the region 
beyond to the Pacific being designated as xS\q. Unexplored Region. This is 
another evidence that the United States did not claim the region as a part of the 
Purchase. The cession made by Spain, it is obvious, completed the United 
States title to the Oregon region. That title, as we have now shown, rests (i) 
upon the discoveries and explorations made by Captain Gray ; (2) the explora- 
tions conducted by Lewis and Clarke; (3) the formation of the Astor establish- 
ment ; and (4) the title devised from Spain. 

The mere recital of the facts in the case, as we have here fairly and faith- 
fully presented them, we think ought to be sufficient to lead every person who 
takes the trouble to examine them, to the conclusion reached in this paper. 
But, to make certainty doubly sure, we submit the following testimony. 

The controversy between the United States and Great Britain respecting the 
sovereignty of the Oregon region covered a period of about thirty years. The 
prominent negotiators on the part of the United States were (first) Richard 



8 Our Title to Oregon. 



Rush, Envoy Extraordinary to Great Britain ; (second) Albert Gallatin, also 
Envoy Extraordinary ; and (third) James Buchanan, Secretary of State during 
Polk's administration. By an examination of the official correspondence of 
these gentlemen, and the official reports of their many conferences, we will be 
best able to determine on what grounds our government laid claim to the region 
in dispute, for it cannot be supposf^d that we held one view, one set of convic- 
tions, and at the same time instructed our representatives to urge another. It 
is safe to say that we on every occasion made the best claim possible founded 
on the best reasons. 

On the 22d of July, 1823, John Quincy Adams, Sec. of State, wrote to Mr, 
Rush: "The right of the United States to the Columbia River and to the 
interior territory washed by its waters, rests (i) upon its discovery from the 
sea, and nomination by a citizen of the United States ; (2) upon its exploration 
to the sea by Lewis and Clarke ; (3) upon the settlement of Astoria, made under 
the protection of the United States; and (4) upon the subsequent acquisition 
of all the rights of Spain." In the letter to Mr. Rush, from which we take the 
foregoing extract, Mr. Adams makes not the slightest allusion to the Louisiana 
Purchase. On the 12th of August, 1824, in a long communication covering 
many pages, Mr. Rush replies to Mr. Adams with great clearness, giving an 
account of the discussions w^hich he had carried on with the representatives of 
the British government, but not the first intimation, from beginning to end, is 
made concerning any claim by reason of the Louisiana Purchase. We next 
come to the correspondence between Mr. Clay, Secretary of State, and Mr. 
Gallatin. This commenced in the summer of 1826. Mr. Clay says not the first 
word of the Louisiana Purchase ; and Mr. Gallatin, in his able and exhaustive 
discussion of the subject, as manifested in his letters, and in his celebrated 
pamphlet of seventy-live pages, published in 1846, and more recently repub- 
lished in the third volume of his " Memoir and Writings," edited by Henry 
Adams, makes but the briefest allusion to the Louisiana Purchase ; and even 
this allusion merely connects the region in dispute with the Purchase as an 
inference or "contiguity," not as an original and actual part of it, the exact 
language used by Mr. Gallatin being as follows: "This utter disregard of the 
rights of discovery, particularly of that of the mouth, sources, and course of a 
river, of t lie principle of coiiiiguity, and of every other consideration whatever, 
cannot be admitted by the United States." {Adams s Memoir, etc., vol. IIL, p. 
493.) The whole bent of Mr. Gallatin's argument is to show that our title to 
Oregon came to us through discoveries, exploration, and occupation. 

In addition to all this we have read with care Mr. Cushing's report made to 
Congress in January, 1839, numerous pamphlets, presidents' messages, reports 
of debates in Congress, an able article in the North American Review, as well 
as the English books by Thomas Falconer, Tavers Twiss, and John Dunn — all 
reviewing and discussing the Oregon Question; but nowhere have we seen 
any attempt whatever to prove that any part of the region west of the Rocky 
Mountains ever belonged to France, or that France ever made any pretense of 
conveying it to the United States. It was no part of the Louisiana Purchase. 
Our title to the Oregon region, as before stated, rests (i) upon the disC'iveries 
and explorations made by Gray, (2) the explorations conducted by Lewis and 
Clarke, (3) the formation of the Aster settlement, and (4) the acquisition of all 
the rights of Spain. 



<^--^, // 



A NEW U. S. IlISTOEY ON A NEW PLAN. 



A POPULAR 




TO^Y OF THE DnITED STJITES 



IN WHICH ARK INSERTED, AS PAKT OF THE NARRATIVE, 

Selections from the Writings of Eminent American Historians and other 
American Writers of Note. 

TO WHICH ARE ADDED 

The I)eclar<tfion of Independence and the Constitution of the 
United States, with eopions Notes. 

Fully Illustrated with Maps, Portraits and Views. 



By JOHN J.ANDERSON, Ph.D. 



Author of a " Grcmiiiiar Schcxil JJistory of ihe United Stalcti." " Mannid of General History, 
^^ History of England," " Hisfortj of Fraucf." " 77m' Historical Reader,'' 
•'The United Siatca Reaiicr," etc., dr. 



A text-liook upon the lustory of our country so compiled as to be a pleasant reading-book 
with eiioiifch variety to give it ail the interest proijerly belong-ing- to a reading-book, and, at the 
same time, contain all the Unitel .States history tliat is required tor ordinary school purposes, has 
long been desired by many teachers. 

It has been the aim of the author of this work to meet this want by weaving in as a part of 
the narrative long extracts from the writings of eminent authors, so that nearly all the great 
events of our country's history arc given in the words of Bancroft, Preseott, Irving, Motley, Haw- 
thorne, Parkman, J'alfrey, and other distinguished writers, thus making a very interesting and 
fascinating volume. This has been so skillfully done that no break occurs in the contiiuuty of the 
narrative. 

It has been the aim of the writer to give only those events that were important in themselves, 
or that had an important bearing upon or relation to important results. It will be seen, then, that 
very much of thai; which finds a i)lace in the ordinary school histor.v is not found here. Details, 
except as far as the.v are necessary to the proper understanduig of what sliould be known, are 
entirely omitted. (ienerally, the.v^ are not worth knowing, and, consequently, no time should be 
spent in lumbering the mind with them. For the same reason, dales have been given sparingly. 
The mo ^t jironiinent, those that mark the great events, are clearly given, while other events are 
regarded as contributing to or resulting from these. More prominence has been given to the facts 
that have to do witli the nation's progi-css in civil matters than to those of a military character. 
Therefore, the invention of the cotton-gin, and the magnetic telegraph, and the consti'iictiou of 
railroads and steamboats, w ith the changes resulting therefrom, have been regarded antl treatetl 
its of more value than the numerous small battles that in no wise modified the tendency of great 
events* 

The numerous-maps in the work cover all the .geogr;ipliy belonging to'the events narrated that 
have occurred within the limits of the United States or Mexico. 

The volume is amply provided with Chronological Tables, Summaries, etc., etc., which so 
peculiarly characterize the histories of this author. 

370 2>'i(/e-s, ]2mo. I'rice, for Int rod iii-tiint, 83 eciit.i. 

Allowance for old book in use, of similar grade, when given in exchange, 33 cents. 

Books ordered for introduction will lie delivered at aliove-nained [irice in ;iny pait of the 
United States. A sample copy for examination, with a view to introduction, will be seiil Ij,\ nuiii 
to teacher or school officer, oh receipt of the introduction price. Address 

CLARK & MAYNARD, Publishers, 

,"> Barclay Street, New Yorh. 



